A longer outing

Lovely day today. With more rain forecast for tomorrow, we had to get out. I did a good stretching session yesterday and my legs were feeling much better so we decided a longer route was in order. With pooch in tow (or was it the pooch towing us?!) we headed out of the door and up the road to the Col de Peguère. We accomplished the 3.5km uphill section at a brisk walk without stopping and then headed up to the Cap de Carmil which we reached 1hr 24 mins after leaving Pissou... not bad going considering the 7.3kms included 800m of ascent. From there we had some steep downhill sections mixed with pleasant running through woodland and then sections of steady uphill gradient before we reached Roc Blanc above the zig zags that led down to the Col de Port. Lovely views from there as always, down the valley towards Tarascon and the Eastern Pyrenées. The Pic de la Journalade and Pic des 3 Seigneurs are looking pretty bare of snow now, thanks to the recent warm weather...
From there, down to the Col de Port where we picked up the 'ancien chemin de Boussenac' which was the old through route used by people heading from Tarascon over the Col and down to Massat. Along the way, we passed this lovely old iron cross embedded in a rock with the year 1772 engraved on it. ... evidence of people who used this path over 200 years ago. Quite thought provoking.

We eventually made it back to Pissou and my Garmin told me we had covered 22km with over 1000m of ascent. The pooch had probably covered more like 30km! He is now officially pooped! It was a lovely route and a good afternoon out.